Novel recommendations?

14 comments

1. Hard Boiled/Hard Luck by Yoshimoto Banana; we used it in my graduate level Japanese classwork and I really enjoyed it.

2. **Another**, by Yukito Ayatsuji

   **Battle Royale**, by Koushun Takami

   **Norwegian Wood**, by Haruki Murakami.

   Those are all regular novels I love!

3. If you like Harry Potter you can read the series and listen to the audiobooks in Japanese. This is what I am currently doing.

4. Soseki Natsume? His are one of the classics which started, err, modern novels in Japan. His literal themes are rather easy to comprehend (mainly triangle relationships).

   Perhaps, one could say that today’s Japanese (so called pure) novels are contextualized in the movement he started.

5. Not a particular novel, per se, but here are some places to browse:

   If you don’t mind older texts (which can be a bit challenging), check out Aozora Bunko- it’s a digital library with many out-of-copyright books, essays, etc:

   https://www.aozora.gr.jp

   They don’t have a huge selection, but if you email them and wait for permission, the Japan Foundation has a digital library:

   https://www.jflalc.org/libby

6. Konbini ningen is a good one for this. Really good book and very straightforward grammar!

7. I’ve quite enjoyed the 青春ブタ野郎 light novel series. There’s also audio book versions of it on Audible Japan.

8. I just finished 三日間の幸福 by 三秋縋 today, and I’d recommend it. It’s not the most lighthearted thing to read, but it’s quite moving.

9. こころ by Souski Natsume, who’s been mentioned already – I didn’t find it a difficult read, and it’s a compelling story

   銀河鉄道の夜 by Miyazawa Kenji

   沈黙 by Endou Shuusaku

   And if you really don’t care about the level, something by Mishima Yukio, his sea of fertility tetrology has been great, if challenging

10. – murakami ryu’s 限りなく透明に近いブルー
    – scifi 最後にして最初のアイドル

11. The wind up bird chronicles. By Haruki Murakami.

12. 四畳半神話大系 by 森見登美彦 is one of my favorite books. I’ve got a copy of 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 that I’ve been sitting on for ages and just not got around to yet…

    Also if you like Star Wars, I started reading ジェダイの光 recently. It’s a translation obviously, but I’ve liked it so far. It’s one of the High Republic books.

13. There’s some good bilingual books like “Breaking into Japanese Literature” which will help you level up much faster if you aren’t used to reading hard material yet. It has some of the best classics or the best parts of them!

14. there are novelizations of your name and weathering with you written by the director of the movies. it’s a pretty fun activity to read and then watch them, or vice versa, and it gives you multiple ways to engage with the same story